Large as Life

A dry day was forecast. Joy! The night would apparently be wet again but the day would be dry. A swift sortie to the local fresh fish shop revealed that Rock was beginning to sound more like Sloane Square than Cornwall as the well-shod descended for the Bank Holiday weekend. We took the opportunity to avoid most of the Bank Holiday traffic and travel the short distance to the handy-dandy National Trust car park at Port Quin to descend upon my favourite coastal walk from there to Port Isaac.

Although today was dry, the previous week’s rain had, of course, left all footpaths soggy and muddy. The coastal path wasn’t too bad, however, and some beneficial work seems to have been carried out putting in steps on some of the many climbs and descents along the three mile route. We paused to try a few snaps on the way and took our time dawdling towards our destination. We’d seen a couple of seals on this stretch last year but today the sea was quite turbulent, crashing quite forcefully against the rock so I was not hopeful of a repeat sighting. Nonetheless, I kept an eye peeled for seals again. Sure enough, in a more sheltered bay, we just spotted a tell-tale black head bobbing about in the waves. [Unfortunately too distant for our lenses – ed.]

Port Isaac doubles as Port Wenn in TV’s Doc Martin. The production crew is currently in the area filming a new series to screen later this year. There was no shooting today but a shooting schedule was posted on a notice board adjacent to the harbour. The usual nearly constant stream of tourists was posing for snaps outside the building that plays the part of Doc Martin’s surgery. More accurately, the building plays the external part of Doc Martin’s surgery; it is apparently not used for the interior. Complex stuff, this TV.

To make a change, we chose to return to Port Quin via the shorter inland footpath, the beginning of which proved to be considerably muddier than anything offered by the coastal route. We eventually slithered our way up the first very muddy ascent and emerged on higher ground that offered much easier walking. The path took us beside a sizeable farm complex which was clearly being used as a base by the Doc Martin production unit. In addition to a caravan or two and a few flashy motors, there, in all its glory, was a van dressed up in the colours of “Large Restaurant”. Being a TV star, the van happily posed for a photo but declined to sign an auto-graph. 🙂